Production Engineering Development of a Dredging Engineering Discipline
Type:
Presented during:
WODCON XVIII - 2007 Orlando, Florida, USA
Authors:
Johnson
Abstract: Although an established engineering discipline in the manufacturing industry, production engineering is a relatively new and young field within the dredging industry. Dredge Production Engineers combine mechanical, civil, and geotechnical engineering tools to estimate, analyze and improve dredge production. The discipline of production engineering generally began its development in the industry with mechanical and civil engineers exploring, developing, and utilizing various engineering tools to estimate and eventually try to improve dredge production. Today, a number of dredging companies employ multi-disciplined and multi-functional Production Engineering Departments to model, estimate, analyze, and optimize dredging production. Some companies even staff their sites with full time field production engineers. Today’s Production Engineers employ specialized, innovative, and sophisticated engineering tools including dredge process data logging analysis, centrifugal pump and slurry transport models, geotechnical sampling and analysis, cutting models, hopper loading models, cycle analysis, and dredging simulator programs.
Using the history and current status of production engineering at Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company as a specific example, this presentation discusses the development of production engineering into a dredging engineering discipline.
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